A Hilarious Noël Coward On Broadway In FALLEN ANGELS — Review

Tracee Chimo, oh how we’ve missed you! 

In the early years of my New York theatergoing, the gifted and highly versatile Chimo was a reliable mainstay across stages big and small. On Broadway, she routinely stole the show in supporting roles, whether as a harried stage manager in Noise Off or four wildly different women in The Heidi Chronicles. But it was off-Broadway where Chimo truly shone, with devastating turns in Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation and, most memorably, Joshua Harmon’s scorching breakout play Bad Jews. As the formidable Daphna, Chimo stalked the shoe-box set of Harmon’s claustrophobic family comedy like a hyena, ready to pounce at the tiniest provocation. 

Chimo has been absent from the New York stage for over a decade. So what a thrill to have her back and stealing scenes once again in Roundabout Theatre Company’s delightful revival of Noël Coward’s 1925 comedy Fallen Angels, opening tonight at the newly renovated Todd Haimes Theatre on Broadway. Chimo is delectably demented as the multi-talented servant Saunders, a raconteur who reveals an improbable array of past clients—master pianists, Dukes, the Red Cross, the Foreign Legion—with each appearance on stage. 

And the show isn’t half bad either. Scott Ellis’ sumptuous staging of this early Coward is highly enjoyable, a sugary bonbon of a production that goes down nice and easy. It’s just the kind of sweet treat we’ve been missing, and so dearly deserve. 

The actual stars of Fallen Angels are a dream duo: Oscar nominee Rose Byrne and Tony Award-winner (plus eight-time nominee) Kelli O’Hara, both having a ball. Byrne and O’Hara plays Jane Banbury and Julia Sterroll respectively, the neglected wives of two fine upper-class gentleman, Willy (Christopher Fitzgerald) and Fred (Aasif Mandvi), who, as the play begins, have left their wives alone for the day to go golfing. 

That morning, Jane and Julia have both received telegrams from a shared lover of their youths: the French lothario Maurice Duclos. Overwhelmed at his possible re-entry into their lives, the two proceed to get utterly soused while awaiting his call. 

Coward’s play was the subject of controversy prior to its 1925 premiere, initially rejected by the censor office of the Lord Chamberlain for lewdness. Today, Fallen Angels could hardly be called either risky or risqué. I suppose there is something refreshing, even now, in Jane and Julia’s unabashed frankness around their energetic sex lives (prior to marriage, of course). But the impetus for bringing back Fallen Angels is hardly timeliness. 

The impetus is fun—daffy, ludicrous, drunken fun. Indeed, fully half of the play is spent watching Byrne and O’Hara get progressively, ridiculously wasted. This is a very entertaining thing to watch, and I was very happy watching it. Byrne and O'Hara are teaching a masterclass in drunk acting, slipping steadily from merriment into near-incoherence. 

Surprisingly, it is O’Hara who gets the most laughs. Her physical work is hysterical, most memorably when O’Hara clutches for dear life to a phone cord that Byrne is pulling away and drags her entire body onto, then fully over, an armchair. 

Byrne is a little shakier to start out, struggling with an exaggerated accent that she is slightly over-pitching. Certain lines got entirely swallowed in Burns’s high-pitched delivery, at least at my performance. (The blame may partly lie with the sound design, by John Gromada, since the vocally precise O’Hara was also occasionally difficult to hear.) 

Still, both are comfortable in their roles. Fitzgerald and Mandvi are similarly at ease, pitching the required cartoonish buffoonery with perfection. David Rockwell’s typically stunning set is not only a wonder to behold, but also a veritable playground filled with delightful toys for the performers to fling about. A moment, also, for Jeff Mahshie’s ravishing costumes, with O’Hara’s vibrant array of louche late-20s dresses an especially standout. 

Coward’s text loses just a little steam towards its conclusion. When Declos does finally arrive, the actor and talk-show host Mark Conuelos (best known for “Live with Kelly & Mark”) proves smartly deployed in the role. His familiarity puts the audience instantly at ease with Declos, while his French accent is so horrendously that it circles all the way back around to hilarious. Still, the construction of Coward’s concluding gag is a little shaky, and the final moments feel like diminishing returns. 

Or perhaps I was just missing my beloved Saunders, who by this point is less present. Chimo, never leave us again!  

Fallen Angels is now in performance at the Todd Haimes Theatre in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.